Wiz Khalifa's High Earnings

Khalifa’s appeal as a so-called crossover act—evidenced by popularity on the college campus circuit and at festivals like Camp Bisco—is underscored by the startling success of his merchandise. Most hip-hop acts tend to gross $2-$3 per head per show; Khalifa’s take is typically north of $5 and sometimes soars as high as $15. That’s territory generally reserved for the likes of mom-approved pop acts like Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift.

But the merch peddled by Khalifa and his crew is far from PG. There’s his black-and-yellow hoodie with a dimebag-sized zipper pocket on the inside of a sleeve ($60); at every show, he sells 150-200 packs of Wiz Khalifa branded rolling papers ($10); for $42, he even hawks a limited edition “420 Kit” that comes with papers, a t-shirt, an herb grinder and baggie (online, a disclaimer: “Wiz Khalifa 420 Kits and Rolling Papers are for adult use and are not intended for use with illegal or controlled substances.”) The artist himself seems to not feel compelled to disclaim.

“Everybody smokes weed,” he says. “My music and my fan base is really built off of my lifestyle … and from older people to doctors, plenty of really successful people function off weed.”

Stoned or not, these people want to buy merchandise—at shows and beyond. Though he sells an average of 700 shirts a night on tour according to industry insiders, roughly one for every three attendees, Khalifa is also the all time top-grossing urban artist at teen-focused mall retailer Hot Topic.

“He built a fan base the way an old-school rock band would build a fan base—get in the van and go,” says Matt Young, Senior VP of Warner Music Group’s merchandising arm, which works in partnership with Khalifa and gets a cut of sales. “Merch is about wanting to identify and wanting to be part of something ... I think the pot smoking thing is a big part of it. He’s proud of his lifestyle and people want to share this.”

Adds Hot Topic's Robert Thomsen: "In the end, the biggest factor to his appeal is that his music speaks and relates to our teen fan."

Despite his young age, Wiz Khalifa is already something of a hip-hop veteran. Born Cameron Jibril Thomaz to a pair of military parents, he moved from South Carolina to Germany to Japan before settling in Pittsburgh at age nine. He wrote his first song, a rap called “Kool Kats,” when he was in third grade (“It was just about, like, being cool as f*ck,” he explains)

His stage name is a nod to both past and present. “Khalifa is Arabic, it means successor, leader, shining light,” he says. “My granddad is Muslim and he gave me that name … ‘Wiz’ just came from me being the youngest guy around everybody. I was pretty good at anything I tried to do, so they called me a young wiz.”

Khalifa released his first mixtape, Prince of the City, in 2005; the next year, he launched his first album, Show and Prove, on an independent label. Hip-hop heads began to gravitate toward his lively flow and unique sound, which seemed to resist characterization in the genre’s hyper-regional classification system.

“I always feel like that gave me an advantage,” he says. “When you’re from the East Coast or you’re from the South, people expect you to sound a certain way. So if you don’t sound that way, people won’t label you as that type of artist. For me, I had a whole new lane to create for myself being from Pittsburgh and being a Midwest artist.”